[Old_Mil]

There is no higher category for a theory to go in science.

Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity." It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity."

Theories do not become laws. Laws describe a very limited set of observations and describe the regularity. Theories can incorporate many facts and laws. For example, Newton's laws of motion. They are a part of Newton's broader theory of universal gravity.

" It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact."

Now you have confused another concept in science. Facts are data points. Laws explain a small set of data points. Theories have a much broader area of explanatory power. NONE OF THEM is ever proved. They describe DIFFERENT things.

Facts can be overturned, as can theories, and so can laws. Newton's *laws* are only reasonably correct at certain speeds and certain masses.

[freedumb2003]

It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact.

Hundreds of years ago maybe. Heard of the "scientific law" of gravity (now a theory)? Even the "laws" of thermodynamics are under challenge and in fact are now theories.

[js1138]

Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity." It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact.

You just can't help stepping in one pile after another.

Explain how Newton's Laws got replaced by Einstein's theory.

You also need to explain how observational facts are, in the long run, less reliable than theories.

Newton, in later printings of his works, "adjusted" his early observational data to conform to theoretical values.

This, of course, is now considered unethical, but in the practice of science, facts are corrected more often than theories.

[RadioAstronomer]

Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law

Not true. "Laws" can be wrong and still be a "law". For example "the law of gravity". However, the theory called "general relativity" has superseded it.

[Virginia-American]

CG: There is no higher category for a theory to go in science.

OM: Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity."

No, that's not true.

For example, there are Boyles' and Charles' Laws describing how gases react to changes in temperature, pressure, and volume.

These are explained by the Kinetic Theory of Gases.

[Thatcherite]

There is no higher category for a theory to go in science.

Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity." It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact.

Thank you for sharing your ignorance of science with us. You should go back to wherever you got your scientific education and demand a refund. Ample explanations of the relative status and significance of scientific Law and scientific Theory are available on the internet.

[Coyoteman]

There is no higher category for a theory to go in science.

Certainly there is. It is called a "scientific law", and is defined as "a statement describing an observed regularity." It is only when a statement of science reaches such a level that it represents scientific fact.

A law in science only describes something, it does not explain it. That is left to theory.

Your search for "scientific fact" is leading you to a mass of unorganized and unexplained data. But, Heinlein said it best:

Piling up facts is not science--science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning: a valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.

A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and new but also discloses unsuspected facts [Heinlein 1980:480-481].